Words and pictures from Silicon Valley by Chris Gulker
On the one hand, it gets 50 mpg and meets European emissions (if not crash-safety) standards. At $2500, it is expected to add a tidal wave of new vehicles to India’s already-jammed roads. While the car may be ready, the people are another story, according to the New York Times. There’s a pretty good car report here…
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Ed Ring reports on the daunting logistics of putting even a small percentage of U.S. commuters into grid-charged electric cars. While it’s true that a grid of photovoltaic or high-temperature solar concentrators about 90 miles square would produce as much electric energy as is currently used in the U.S., many questions and issues remain (like how to pay for it all). Solar energy is at its peak while commuter cars are sitting in parking lots, not in their home garages… I like the photocells-on-car idea…
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Aside from not having a national grid with enough inexpensive, ‘green’ power to recharge them, electric cars are being stalled by one other problem: batteries. No one has yet developed a battery that is sufficiently powerful, small and safe. A handful of startups and some industrial giants are working on the problem, as described in today’s Wall Street Journal. The current leader, Lithium-Ion technology, has an unfortunate tendency to catch fire…
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